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Tonight is another night out, meeting up with colleagues from The Minnow [1]. We're six years out from the merger, and there are colleagues The Whale didn't take, colleagues The Whale laid off, and a smattering of us who remain. It feels odd to know that i've been working for The Whale longer than i worked for The Minnow. If i stay at the Whale, i suppose i'll get to a point where it will feel odd to know i have had other managers than DRR for as long as i have.
The Minnow and its people have been good to me, shaping me.
I'm listening to a book on management, "The Orange Revolution," and one thing that i do note is that despite some of the dysfunction i whine about incessantly, i might be in a much better place than average. The Minnow was better, in many ways, but we were incredibly stressed by the financial pain we were under. The leadership in the year or so of layoffs before the merger was horrible: a sort of emotional sniping going on without honest communication about reality. I can understand now that there could be no communication about much of the reality --- merger negotiations -- so i can imagine how difficult it would be for the leadership to hold two visions simultaneously. I think i can actually do that fairly easily, but i recognize it's usually hard.
The Whale is in the same financial environment but has a huge endowment, a much larger customer base, and is more diversified. I do think the vision for survival is a good one: i suppose i should try making sure the team is really aware of it.
Right now i have only two significant complaints about the leadership, and one i have a model for understanding. The first is why on earth any one would groom New Director, but i recognize that he's maleable and young. On paper, yeah, let him grow to lead the future. Now that i've figured out how to get my personal needs met, and enough staff have been given leadership around New Director for things to get done, ... he's an annoyance.
The second is being out of touch enough with the real state of the engineering basis for the forward plans that one would gamble so much on the forward plans. I think our sales goals, if met, will kill us.
The Whale wins "Best Place to Work" awards fairly consistently and our "employee engagement scores" are high. I think there are likely some extreme variations, and i know some of the more miserable folks. "Best Place to Work" for technical staff does not translate to the same for customer service staff, for example. "Best Place to Work In Ohio" doesn't mean much to a Californian. Still - there's an effort to do things in a way that is good for staff.
I'm thankful for that, and it's one of the reasons i hesitate so on leaving.
[1] The Minnow is my blog name for the company i worked for 2001-06, which had roughly 100 staff and did the same work as the order of magnitude larger company i work for now, only doing it for the Special Libraries -- those at research universities, national libraries, museums and archives. The "merger" didn't feel like a "merger" but like being swallowed.
The Minnow and its people have been good to me, shaping me.
I'm listening to a book on management, "The Orange Revolution," and one thing that i do note is that despite some of the dysfunction i whine about incessantly, i might be in a much better place than average. The Minnow was better, in many ways, but we were incredibly stressed by the financial pain we were under. The leadership in the year or so of layoffs before the merger was horrible: a sort of emotional sniping going on without honest communication about reality. I can understand now that there could be no communication about much of the reality --- merger negotiations -- so i can imagine how difficult it would be for the leadership to hold two visions simultaneously. I think i can actually do that fairly easily, but i recognize it's usually hard.
The Whale is in the same financial environment but has a huge endowment, a much larger customer base, and is more diversified. I do think the vision for survival is a good one: i suppose i should try making sure the team is really aware of it.
Right now i have only two significant complaints about the leadership, and one i have a model for understanding. The first is why on earth any one would groom New Director, but i recognize that he's maleable and young. On paper, yeah, let him grow to lead the future. Now that i've figured out how to get my personal needs met, and enough staff have been given leadership around New Director for things to get done, ... he's an annoyance.
The second is being out of touch enough with the real state of the engineering basis for the forward plans that one would gamble so much on the forward plans. I think our sales goals, if met, will kill us.
The Whale wins "Best Place to Work" awards fairly consistently and our "employee engagement scores" are high. I think there are likely some extreme variations, and i know some of the more miserable folks. "Best Place to Work" for technical staff does not translate to the same for customer service staff, for example. "Best Place to Work In Ohio" doesn't mean much to a Californian. Still - there's an effort to do things in a way that is good for staff.
I'm thankful for that, and it's one of the reasons i hesitate so on leaving.
[1] The Minnow is my blog name for the company i worked for 2001-06, which had roughly 100 staff and did the same work as the order of magnitude larger company i work for now, only doing it for the Special Libraries -- those at research universities, national libraries, museums and archives. The "merger" didn't feel like a "merger" but like being swallowed.
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